


The Good Old Days

by Rotschild



Series: Monsters and Heroes [8]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 10:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14330922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotschild/pseuds/Rotschild
Summary: The Reaper needs a time out of all that mercenary business. He decides to go on a treasure hunt on his own.





	The Good Old Days

**Author's Note:**

> Talon sets up their meetings early in the morning, because they are the active type of "what horrible evil are we going to commit today?!" people. I instantly thought of Pinky and Brain, sorry. 
> 
> In the next chapters, you won't believe it, some actual plot will happen!  
> So, uh, there are some things that happen around the same time, so I wasn't sure about the order of the next chapters. Hope I made it obvious enough.  
> Thank you for reading :]

Talons council meetings were at least more interesting than the ones Overwatch held back in the day. But there was a pretty big chance it was just because absolutely no one stuck to some kind of civil rules or some forced courtesy. Plus they gave Gabriel usually lots of free information about allies and patrons of Talon and everything he had to do for it was just to force down his gag reflex, sit down for a while and take note of all mentioned names and exposed faces. 

It made for some easy targets. 

If some of the ones he could identify vanished under mysterious circumstances some time in, who knew? The life as a terrorist and money launderer was dangerous, even if you were just some rich filth who liked to throw their money around. Talon had lots of well known enemies who loved to fuck with them. Unfortunately not big enough on manpower for Gabriel to think about recruitment. And guns for hire? Who trusted guys who only did stuff for money? Hell, Talon sure had enough reason to not trust 'him', funny enough. 'Gabriel' was a gun for hire, he knew what he was talking about. 

And if someone suspected and Gabriel looked just this little bit 'too' curious about who was involved in the dark schemes, no one in the meetings was the wiser. The Reaper never showed anyone his face after all. 

Only for one person he took the mask off. He liked to really look at Jack without any hindrance and even though the mask felt now in equal parts like a part of him as his coat or his guns... It didn't feel right to leave it on while Jonathan was looking at him...

The sight of that damn Morrison felt for Gabriel like the shine of a candle in the dark. He needed to be near. He needed to see and felt like a moth drawn to a flame. Even if Jack had burned him before... 

And of course it was just bad luck that their last meeting left Gabriel so vulnerable and exposed him greatly to extended mockery. 

Akande watched the footage of him making out with the old soldier for the third time in a row now with an expressionless visage. Sombra, who sat to Gabriels right, snickered and snorted, while trying very hard not to. Her face turned an interesting shade of pink that didn't go well with her bright green outfit.

She may even had a thought or two about catcalling him if Akande didn't look like he wanted to squash some skulls. 

But concealed by the desk she still rammed her elbow into Gabriels side. He was not amused. 

"You said, you would kill him. Reaper", Akande stated without lifting his eyes from the footage. What a creep. 

Gabriel sneered even if no one got to see it. tetchy he tilted his head and tipped in a bored mannerism with his talons against his elbows. "I said", he bit back. "That I would 'try.'"

"You and trying", drawled Widowmaker in her usual accented english that always made Gabriel feel like she was actually, right at this very moment, somehow divorcing him. Well, everyone had their own form of power. "You shouldn't just try, he wasn't even looking for cover or defense."

"Because", said Akande, "Soldier76 was sure he wouldn't need any protection at all. And look. He 'didn't'"

Again the scene of his failed show-fight with Jack played out before them. Right till the tears. And the kiss. It was strange for Gabriel to see because he couldn't recognize himself in the footage at all. He of course knew that it happened exactly like it was shown on screen. But it still felt so... unreal. 

He didn't cry since the day the omnic crisis ended. And even then not anything like what he saw now. 

"You send me to kill him. I tried. I couldn't", he growled lowly and dared all those present to judge him. "But you forget that you couldn't kill him either. Even Keith and his useless thugs couldn't kill him. He just vanished and came back even more pumped up. Ziegler must have the time of her life."

If he got a little snarky here, Akande couldn't get any more angry and red faced, anyway. "So I was unable and you were too", Gabriel said, already bored of him and his twitching muscles. "We all failed on all accounts. So I don't see how a one time failure like this would be enough to declare 'me' completely useless to your hobby-terrorist organization at large?"

Akandes fist crashed down on the table so hard, it shattered the wooden plate. "Not one of us but 'you' have an exposed emotional weakness that made us 'want' to fail!!"

"But you aren't able to kill him anyway, are you?!", screeched the Reaper right back as his talons scratched deep furrows in the hardwood of the broken table. "I am the only one in this damn council, likely even the world, who is able to kill this menace, so you should be begging on your knees that I keep him busy enough to not run all of you over all on his own!!"

The following silence was deafening.  
Till the moment Sombra lifted her hand hesitantly.

"... By making out...?"

...

Gabriel had to remind himself repeatedly and with more than one unnecessary deep breath, that he liked Sombra just that little bit too much to choke her to death with her own intestines. 

He turned his head, but Sombra just grinned widely at him - and booped his mask with her fingertip. 

She never had felt even slightly intimidated by him. It was so weird. She was so very tiny but 'so sure' that Gabriel wouldn't harm her. 

Well... Gabriel had this hunch that she just knew. 

She pretty much knew everything about him and Jack. It was likely she knew all about what he was doing, but most importantly - she knew all about who he was and still, to this day, were.  
It should be a compelling argument to get rid of her as fast as possible, but -...  
"Not. Helping. Sombra."  
Instantly Sombra broke out in helpless snorts and breathless giggles that almost brought tears to her eyes.  
Gabriel liked to see her laugh. She was so sure about everything and her confidence irked him but she reminded him so much about long gone days. About a not even eighteen year old halfwit, only armed with a sixshooter and a hell of a lot bad puns. 

Gabriel liked to think sometimes, if things had turned out differently, in a different universe, he could have had a daughter just like her. 

And not god or devil could ever force him to say that aloud. 

As Sombra wiped her tears away she said with still hitching breaths: "Wasn't meant to, big guy. Well, as I see it, we are at a draw here. Because big guy is right."

Widowmaker, Gabriel sometimes struggled to not call her Ameli out loud, rolled her pretty eyes and leaned back in her seat like she owned it. "Of course the mongrel would take his side", she drawled. 

Doctor O'Deorain tipped her fingertips against each other in her usual thinking-pose. "Stupidity is not a right, Reaper. This wasn't a fight. The Soldier used you without any effort. It's interesting to see that even something like you can be played like a fiddle if needed."

Everything just stopped. Muffled noise rushed through his head and Gabriel wasn't even sure himself what happened, till he suddenly loomed above the Doctor.  
His talons stretched and arched into the wood of the broken able as hot waves of something rushed through his entire being that felt so much like pure wrath and boiling hot blood. 

"He tricked me!", he roared. His talons buried themselves deep into the wood and he ripped them aside, sent O'Deorain notes and files flying in a rain of shredded paper. "He betrayed me!"

Gabriel felt like he couldn't breath and think at the same time - while breathing came no longer natural to him, anyway. 

"HE KILLED ME!! How 'dare' you useless waste of space to judge, if it was 'YOUR CREATION' in the first place that made me so vulnerable to puny static energy?!"

Sombra touched his shoulder as she suddenly appeared right beside him. She did that a lot. 

"Heey. It was not just static energy", she said and sounded almost offended. "You were pretty tough out there."

The Reaper growled like a monstrous thing as he turned around and broke the nearest thing in blind rage that he could get his hands onto. His chair cracked to peaces against the next damn wall. 

It wasn't surprising that Akandes first question to Sombra was: "Are you able to re-create it?!"  
Sombra winked confidently. "Of course I am. It will be a bit tricky and I may need big guy here for some trial runs. I never tried to fry circuits this small and so many of them all at once."

Akande seemed to be satisfied with that. "So be it, Sombra. Make yourself useful. And you", his gaze weighed down on the Reaper. "Get out of my fucking sight."

He tilted his head to Widowmaker and Doctor O'Deorain. "Get out. And get me Keith."

The Reaper stomped furiously over the threshold as he heard Sombra getting called back by Akande. On the corridor he went fuming up and down and clawed at the walls as he felt trapped in his own head and skin. As Sombra suddenly appeared again, she grabbed his arm and strolled away in so much natural grace as if she always did this. The Reaper still felt like all of him was burning. 

He followed her lead without a thought or look while he tried to get himself under control again. 

"You alright there, big guy?", Sombra asked suddenly in a for her unusually earnest tone of voice. The Reaper stretched his quivering form because his skin just felt way too hot and tight for him. "Of course I am!", he snarled back through rows of horrific teeth. Sombra looked at him and wrinkled her nose. "'Of course' you are."

They walked a while just like that, she watching him and the Reaper just brooding, till he noticed that Sombra had walked them right into the conservatory. Sun through the window dome and trees and bright green grass was the sight that got his racing thoughts eventually to calm down again. They even played bird noises here and a part of the Talon doctors bred especially colorful butterflies. 

Gabriel was sure that some of them were most likely toxic and dangerous. 

But the sounds and the green calmed him. The sun warmed his cloak and let the little nanites humm with a fresh boost of natural energie that made him instantly feel more like an actual living thing. As Gabriel leaned against the trunk of a high grown oak, Sombra sat down right beside his boots and used her implants to surf and hack away after some unknown target. But she still didn't drop her point. "You are always so... mad when it comes to your lucky one."

Gabriel felt way too tired to lash out at her, even if he felt it would be kind of satisfying to clock her nosy head. 

"It isn't about 'Jack'", he growled bitterly because of course he knew Jack didn't really do any of the things he said. But... Gabriel still carried so much wrath and bitterness with him from a time when he 'believed' exactly that. He couldn't get rid of the damn remnants of feeling betrayed and hurt. Not as easy as he should, anyway. 

"Since I am-... The moment I woke up like that, I had to deal with a scattered mind", he muttered darkly. "I have trouble to control any of my emotional responses. Especially when it comes to my response to anger."

Even if he calmed down in the sunlight he still couldn't contain himself in his form. Too many eyes blinked open, even as he tried to control his shape.  
"There is no way to contain negative emotions, as long as my nanites often react on their own through the damn useless chemicals my body still produces as it just... Imitates human life. I guess it makes me at least efficient as an interrogator since I frighten every guy with even half a brain comple and utterly 'shitless'."

Sombra snorted and rolled her eyes.  
"What a big, strong guy... always the bad cop."

Gabriel ignored her sarcasm in favor of sitting down besides her. "I am the bad guy, because there is nothing else I could be like this. I could branch out and make a living as the monster under the bed. What do you think?" 

Sombra giggled and patted his shoulder. "Oh, don't be so hard on yourself. Not every super-hero started as an upstanding citizen, you know?" 

She startled a deep chuckle out of Gabriel and seemed quiet pleased with that. "I don't know if I even should play the good guy again. I never was good at that. I never accepted boundaries or morals when it came to-... You know that I killed a lot of guys, even before I was like this...?" 

Sombra suddenly let out a bone deep sigh and let her head fall back against the tree with a dull knock on wood. With a deep intake of breath she rolled her eyes and tilted her head against his shoulder. "So? You know who else killed some guys?" 

Gabriel twitched at her touch and pulled a face. "What do you-..." 

"I did", she said in a mostly conversational tone of voice. "Well yes, I don't 'like' to, but I do it since my teens. Good guy Morrison killed a whole lot of guys, too." 

Gabriel furrowed his brows and tried to find something to say to that. Because of fucking course did Jack kill a whole damn lot of people. "Sure, sure, dead guys all around, but usually they don't end up sniveling and crying for their mothers first. Before I ended up as some horrible smoke monster, I-..." 

"You know who else you made cry and got killed, just some years ago?", asked Sombra with a sudden sharp note in her voice. Her eyes glinted in anger that Gabriel couldn't quiet grasp and in a horrible premonition his breath stuttered to a halt. Sombra observed him with an unnerving stare. As she spoke again her voice went slow and low. As if she was sharing a secret. "A guy with the name Pedro Álvarez. Remember him?" 

Álvarez... 

It was a quiet common name as far as Gabriel was concerned, but to get on his personal hitlist, this guy had had to be a horrendous menace for the authorities. Blackwatch had always been the last instance for 'justice'. "I-... I'm not sure. What did he do?" 

First Sombra looked a little disappointed, but at least she didn't hold his lacking memory against him. A wide grin appeared on her face as her eyes narrowed down. "Pedro Álvarez had once been the head of Los Muertos. They weren't purged completely, but as Blackwatch came to Puerto Reynosa and cleared them up for a while, people were free for the first time in almost twenty years. The first time in whatever they could bury their dead in dignity and were able to leave their homes without the risk of getting shot at." 

Oh...yes. Gabriel remembered now. It had been a political nightmare on a global scale, not so unlike the one that followed some time later in Venice. Álvarez had been just some stupidly rich fuck and everyone had known how he got there. But nobody had had the power to prove it. 

Álvarez also did hold ties to Talon, like all the filth Gabriel got his hands on, it seemed. The mission had been a mess. In a cloak and dagger operation Blackwatch slipped through the lines of defenses and ripped Los muertos a new one. Gabriel lost good comrades that night. They went in, got the head of Puerto Reynosa and squeezed every last drop of information out of that pig they could get, before they cleared the area. 

Gabriel twitched at the sudden vivid memory of a knife in his side and McCrees wrathful face as he picked up a crying child that had been a hostage just seconds ago. It had been horrible and bloody and dangerous. Like everything Blackwatch had involved itself into. 

Sombras ellbow tipped into his side as and looked up at him with an earnest smile on her face. "You killed a lot of guys and who fucking cares? You are a hero, big guy. You always were. Not all heros have a clean slate - and not all of them wear capes." 

Gabriel hummed in thought and slowly crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Blackwatch, you say... " 

Sombra tilted her head in a silent question. Gabriel looked into her bright eyes and her open face and felt so very exhausted. He was so tired of playing this game with her. At this point he had to make sure. He needed to know. He wasn't made for a life like this and with Jack so far out of his reach-... 

Gabriel had made it years before he caved. But he craved so much for contact, it made him heavy and weighted like lead on his weary mind. He needed someone to hold onto, just a little. Someone that kept him sane. Sombra was now with him for years and Gabriel yearned for a soul he could talk to and actually trust. So he finally asked what he so desperately needed to know. "Sombra. Do you know who I am?" 

Sombra looked at him completely unimpressed. "Duh." Again, she startled a laugh out of him that made his whole frame shake. "Of course, I know, big guy", she said easily with a wide smile. "Everyone knows. It isn't really a secret around here, do you think?" 

Gabriel chuckled and slowly shook his head, because this time she didn't quite understand. He could just laugh it off and let it be at this point but-... He didn't want to. "I didn't ask you for my name. I asked if you know who I am." 

Sombras derision died down fast after that. Her grin faded and her eyes got back that earnest glint that did not fail to make her look like the grown woman she actually was. She stared sharply with a scrutinazing gaze and Gabriel almost choked on a laugh as he got aware that they were now nothing more than two free-lance double agents who, in this very moment, came for the first time to a mostly silent understanding and finally decided to bond over their work. Sombra snorted and shook her head. "Yeah. Yes, I guess, I know you. You always were kind of my favorite." 

Gabriel couldn't help but to roll his eyes, all of them, and asked himself 'how'. Just how did he get himself in this utterly ridiculous situation where killing people was no big deal and the sharpest whistle-blower his target could afford didn't give a shit about his motifs anymore. "Oh, you flatter me, darling. I guess, what is some murderous inhuman anti-hero without his sassy sidekick." 

"Sidekick?!", well if that wasn't a note of affront in her lovely voice. Gabriel grinned while a satisfied humm filled his chest. Sombra clicked her tongue and gave a mediocre punch to his upper arm. "Remember that I can tinker stuff that's able to kill you, big guy. You won't get old if you cross me." 

Since Gabriel was already almost twice her age, he was pretty sure there wasn't much he had to fear. A deep exhale dropped his shoulders and his whole form almost collapsed with the sense of relief he suddenly felt. Even cut off from everyone who mattered, he wasn't completely on his own. It helped. Just to know that, helped a lot. 

"You calmed down now?", quipped Sombra, back to her loud and carfree self and Gabriel noticed that, indeed, he was as calm and in control as he could get. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Next he rolled his shoulders, rearanged the artificial bones under his skin and made sure the nanite swarm obeyed his concious will. His little monsters swarmed in a warm flow of crackling energy, charged by sunlight and decomposed biomatter. Relieved he leaned back against the tree and buried the claws of his left hand into grass and clammy earth. "Yes." 

Sombra hummed like a scientist that evaluated some interesting reactions. "Nanites mushing your brain or not, better work on your self control there, huh?", she finally said. "Or you may end up scratching pretty boys face even more."

Gabriel felt his stomach drop. His nanites instantly proved Sombras point as they swarmed like black fire to protect their host from his own emotional reactions. Gabriel swallowed thickly. Sombra gave him a smile as she closed her hand around his wrist. "You guys have both enough scars for a lifetime, don't you think?"

"I-... yes", he muttered guiltily.

Sombra took pity on him. "You really need a vacation of all this mercenary business. How's the force field holding up?"

Gabriel pulled back his glove to expose a device that reminded of a simple wristwatch. Too bad its color was a bright pink. The display lighted up with the wanted data instantly. "24 percent", he murmured and Sombra squeezed his arm. "Hm... At 20 it should get ineffective. Feel better in place since last night?" 

As long as he wore the device it wasn't possible for him to fall into pieces or smoke his way around like he used to. So Gabriel couldn't just try. But his panic attacks subsided over the last hours and he didn't feel so... scattered anymore. 

After Jack activated the bomb, Gabriels conscious mind got ripped apart in so many impartial entities he almost lost his sanity there. He still felt a strange kind of cold- and hollowness in his limbs and somehow felt like his figure had a lot less solid weight to it, even in a human shape. 

Anxiety hummed in his veins as it had been a challenge at first to even form a whole being with only one functioning mind. 

Sombra mentioned that the additional physical pains could be a psychosomatic reaction to what had happened to him. A human mind wasn't build to become suddenly a hive mind of millions. Especially not millions of the same being.  
Still Gabriel nodded. "Yes."

He was good enough after all. 

But with 'vacation' Sombra reminded him of something important. He fished with his claws under his collar until he got hold of the feeble ball chain and tucked the key out of his coat. "A vacation... So isn't it my luck that I got hold of one of the Soldiers secrets? So like a good boy I will make myself useful and go out in search for new intel."

"Oooh!", excited Sombra clapped into her hands as she greedily looked at the dangling key. "Your lucky one gave that to you? What is it for?!"

Gabriel snorted. "So you don't already know?"  
Sombra rolled her eyes. "Well if I go by the size and the markings I would guess it's for a music box or something. Something delicate and tiny."

But her eyes began to sparkle soon in excitement again. "Hey, if he hid some old paper files somewhere I wanna have a look, or I tell blue doll that you threw the guy at her on purpose to make her miss her shot!"

Well, lucky for her Gabriel was utterly convinced she wouldn't. She didn't like Widowmaker enough to worry about her headcount. Or was invested in Talon enough to report an insider known to her. So... who knew with her, anyway. Sombra did a lot of stuff just because she could, apparently. 

So Gabriel didn't really mind sharing. "Sure."

Sombra squeed in joy and hugged his right arm like one would a teddy, but then she suddenly halted and looked up. "But no nudes or horrible love poems!"

"SOMBRA!!"

* * *

Gabriel left the base on the same day and went on a relaxing and long march on foot along the dusty roads to Indiana. He wasn't sure why he didn't just take one of the damn drop ships or even a car, but... 

He felt like some time alone, just him and a nice unknown payoff hidden on a figurative treasure map, was maybe exactly what he needed to calm the fuck down and start to 'think'. 

As Sombras device lost its charge, Gabriel dissolved his gear as well as his cloak and wandered the first time in ages just as a sort of human in sunlight. Well, he still looked like the arrival of a bad omen and if townsfolk noticed his flaking ashen skin usually hidden under his hoodie, he just had to turn a street corner and take one step to be far away from them. 

Talon never went on a warpath without calling their indestructible mercenary first, so Gabriel didn't even need to worry about a sudden attack on Jacks flock while he was away. 

He walked through all days and nights and took a freight train to the west. Bloomington turned out to be a lot smaller than it used to be, like all the overrun cities through the crisis, but the rural outskirts were a gift to mankind. Wide space stretched under an open blue sky. Lovely green hills and golden fields. 

Gabriel wouldn't lie, it took him pretty long to find the way to Jacks old home just from hazy memories alone. But as he laid his hand on the gutter that opened the path to the looming old farmhouse he felt a flood of tingly warmth, even though he couldn't remember the sight of this place. 

Gabriel knew, the last time he set foot on the farm grounds the omnic crisis had still been a raging storm and little, lanky soldier Morrison had been so green, he had wretched by the smell of burned flesh. Gabriel was pretty sure it had been the time his mum died, that Jack went home for the last time. Well, at least until he got back to bury his treasure, some time ago. Jacks place in the army turned to be his 'home' and his fellow soldiers got the title of 'family', so, Gabriel got to think, Jack didn't see the point of coming back and settle down when all what he loved and lived was far away from here. 

The old house loomed like a haunted place over the golden fields that surrounded it. The barn behind it caught fire as the Omnics came, but still stood there, even with that pretty impressive hole in its side and a caved in roof.

There were still traces of bastion fires on the wooden walls and broken machine parts littered the place, just rusting in rain and sunlight. All in all it was not the nicest place for an old soldier with raging PTSD to be. Even if it laid peacefully surrounded by lovely green land and framed by golden cornfields. 

It would be a good motive for a postcard or a photo.

Gabriel thought about sending one to Jack, but... It seemed too cruel. There was a reason why he hadn't been here in years. 

So.  
Where would an old paranoid military man bury his most loved and treasured memories?

Gabriels first thought was amusingly the crawlspace under Jacks childhood bed. To get there was a lot trickier than he thought, because any and every wooden plank in that damn land house was rotten and the whole place was infested with breeding insects. The house looked just fine from the outside, but parts of the ceiling, stairs and the roof already caved in and made room for growing plants and even nesting birds. 

As Gabriel found the right room he was a little overwhelmed with how much 'Jack' it was, even today. Jack left his home at eighteen and with that was a soldier in at least third generation, how the many rotting photographs around the house of black and white dudes in uniform led Gabriel to assume. 

So it wasn't that surprising that on the walls one could find recruitment posters from even before the Omnic crisis. Jack and his damn hero complex manifested pretty early, it seemed. Since Jack was also a farmer, the typical cowboy vibe was also not surprising, even if it made Gabriel laugh to find boots, plaid shirts and even a white cowboy hat to go with it. Especially because of the way Jack treated Jesse about his fashion sense today. It just was too hilarious to think of. 

Jacks mum used to tape his letters to the mirror on his wardrobe and Gabriel just couldn't contain his curiosity and took a look. Too bad they used to be out in open sunlight. The ink was long faded by now. Gabriel hesitated, till he decided to take one of them anyway. 

In a room full of ghosts it wasn't easy to find the thing he got here for in the first place. Also because Gabriel wasn't sure what he was even searching. He found something that looked like an old toy chest in the dresser, but the key didn't fit, so Gabriel left it as it was. 

After he searched Jacks old room, he ghosted through a crack in the ceiling to the unstable and open attic, but aside from covered old furniture and a dried out dead rodent he didn't find anything of worth. 

He played with the thought of just asking Jack about it, but where would be the fun in that? 

The Reaper was officially 'on vacation' after all. 

So he strolled over the farm grounds looking for a sign of disturbance in the grass and dirt, even though he was pretty sure, Jack wouldn't have literally buried anything.

He didn't really expect to find something by the barn but... In hindsight it seemed pretty obvious. Memories about the war and military hidden in a reminder of recent history. 

Not much of the barn was still standing but the bare skeleton of the wooden building. The roof already caved in with the fire and as Gabriel lifted the coals he found not only the sad blank bones of some farm animals but also the torso of a long deactivated E54 Bastion model. That must be the thing that caused the ran in wall on the right. It seemed like it got blown to pieces by anti tank rocket fire. Maybe it even crawled to this place to hide till its energy cells went offline. Gabriel would have felt bad for the thing, if he weren't so sure that one of those damn bastions one time almost shot his legs off. 

The ruins of the barn weren't that big so they were easy to search through and in the end Jacks dramatic bullshit got at least a laugh out of Gabriel.  
Jack had used the bulky body of the Bastion like a tombstone. Right under it's canon laid a horse skull on tufts of rotten hay and right under that, Gabriel found a small cavity.  
It was a lot more stuff in it as he thought.  
A full and heavy filing folder was at its bottom, then some stinking newspapers and articles that already were covered in mold and a lot of other, mostly little, things. Some medals, a little banged up toy soldier made of wood and a pretty black cube like box with special engravings. 

'That' looked like the thing he was searching for. Curious beyond belief he got the box out, but sat it aside first in favor of the hidden files. Gabriel was baffled as he determined it was full of decades old Overwatch and Blackwatch mission reports. As Soldier76 came into existence he raided old Overwatch bases and stole all kinds of things. These were part of it, it seemed. 

For Gabriel it looked like mostly worthless mementos. They were from a time were agents still had to write their reports per hand and mostly it was Gabriels angry and ugly scrawls on the papers. As he started to read, he had an idea why Jack took them. They were pretty amusing. 

Not only did Gabriel always hate paperwork, at the start he almost did anything to weasel himself out of it. And if that wasn't possible he filled his reports with mostly sarcastic rants about his bickering Blackwatch recruits, just to piss of the bosses or to make Jack laugh. If possible, both. Jack found it hilarious until the day he didn't. 

Well, good old days. 

Gabriel decided to keep the files. Here they would be just left to rot and who knew? Maybe Sombra could get something useful out of them. 

Careful Gabriel lifted the black box into his lap, turned it this and that way, until he found the little keyhole. This time the key fit and the lid lifted with a satisfying click. 

Excited like a little boy on christmas Gabriel opened it up. It came to no surprise to him, that it was filled to the brim with older and newer photos. They smelled weird, kind of like petrol. Some of them were burned badly and stuck together through gooey black grease. This was indeed stuff saved from fires. Was it all from swizz HQ? 

Gabriel took a bundle into his hands and plucked them apart carefully. Jack, this useless sentimental dipshit, of course mostly hid away pictures of Gabriel. It was a weird thing to do, now that Gabriel thought about it. To stash away photos he wasn't even able to see properly. 

Maybe that it were mostly visual mementos was the reason why Jack didn't take them, or at least some of them, with him. From all the photos of Gabriel, from his Overwatch to Blackwatch days and even before that, there was only one unburned one with them both in focus. Maybe Amari took the shot...? 

Now, that couldn't be. As Gabriel studied his own way too young and almost unmarked face and Jacks weirdly lanky body...  
This one had to be taken even before the SE program took place. Jack was so tall and thin that his posture looked all wrong with the heavy gear he was carrying. Gabriel snorted. A real Captain America, indeed. 

The Gabriel in the photo stood besides a street, guns loosely at his sides and watched something off camera to his right, while Jack stood a step behind him and stroked a grubby cat that he held on his arm. He grinned widely and his expression stretched the dust and dirt on his sunburned skin, so that dark freckles showed beneath the grime. The cat didn't care about his dirty hands and arched into his touch with happily closed eyes. 

Gabriel had absolutely no Idea when this photo was taken. If he even noticed Morrisons pretty face that time or if he just cared for crushing as many tin cans as possible as long as he was alive. 

Were they an item this early or did it come later...?  
With a sudden sense of horror Gabriel realized he couldn't remember.  
He knew to his core that he loved Jack dearly even years before everything crushed down above their heads.  
But when did it start and 'how'? 

Now seemed like a good moment to start another round of philosophy about his state of being. Was Gabriel Reyes still an actual person? Or was he just a fading memory, carried by a swarm of millions of micro machines? He guessed any explosion that ripped a person to pieces could also have the side effect of some lost and scattered memories. Gabriel swallowed around the uncomfortable lumb that had formed in his throat and set a new mission objective for himself: get back to Jack and fill some blank spaces. Because in this photo he didn't seem like Jacks lover or even a friend. Just another commanding officer. 

Gabriel laid the photo aside and went through the others in search of answers. And while he didn't find those, he found something even better. 

The photo was burned and wrinkled pretty bad around the edges but it survived enough events of the past to still be nice and easy to look at. It seemed that it was carried around a lot before and Gabriel could see why.  
It was a photo taken on a press conference, of all things. But not by a journalist it seemed, because the picture was taken by someone that stood behind them. 

Jack stood at the podium and answered questions by the wild crowd of journalists in front. Gabriel stood beside him without even a step of distance. While Jack wore the typical blue of the strike commander, Gabriel wore just a grey hoodie and his usual washed out jeans. But that wasn't the good part of the picture. 

The absolute best part was that, while Jack held his left hand on the podium to sort through papers and point out questioners, he held his right out of sight behind his back. Where Gabriel tangled his Fingers with his in a sure grip, out of sight of every camera but one. 

It wasn't possible to determine at once when this photo had been taken. But they where both older in it and grey hairs started to shine through jacks golden strands. Gabriel decided right there it was the absolute best picture that could have ever been taken of them. 

He put the others back in the box, except these two and decided to let the others rest in peace together with the key until Jack wanted to get them back. 

Laughing Gabriel sat down and let his little nanites dissolve the pictures in ones and zeroes like they used to do with his gear. He couldn't risk to carry them as they were through all kinds of Talon bases.  
In a little test run he formed them again in his hands and of course it worked like a charm. Perfect. 

Chuckling to himself he sat down on the remains of that bastion and tried to get any little spec of information out of them as he possibly could. 

Meanwhile he started to notice even little things, like the cat carrying a name tag marked 'bob' and how delicate Jacks fingers curled around his hand while a journalist picked his nose in the background. 

As his ComSign activated, the world was already dark around him and insects rustled and chirped noisily. With an annoyed sigh Gabriel pulled it into his hand. 

"I don't care what this is about. Go play with the others", he grumbled into the device. Of course it was Sombra. But she didn't snark back at him instantly like she used to. She was also awfully silent. He could hear her breathing over the static noise of the ComChannel. 

"I fucked up, Gabe."

She usually never called him by his actual name. Treated it like some secret between them. It made Gabriel nervous instantly. "What happened?!"

Was she hurt?! 

He could taste her hesitation in the quiet seconds that followed. "You remember the meeting with Akande?", she asked and seemed quiet breathless. Gabriel tried for a lame Joke. "I'm not that old, darling."

Sombra laughed but it was too fast, too loud. She sounded like a scared kid that broke some neighbors window and didn't want to tell their parent. "Well, he... he wanted me to search the whereabouts of Hanzo Shimada."

That... Wasn't really surprising, Gabriel thought. The lost Shimada brother was another obstacle to overcome since he started to kill Yakuza and Talon associates. Not as prominent as the Soldier, but a rogue entity Talon wanted to own for years. "Well, Did you find him?"

Sombra huffed and Gabriel could 'hear' her rolling her eyes. "Of course I did, I-... Look. I didn't find the Idea of Akande getting one of the dragons much appealing. So I pinged your ex. "

Gabriel wasn't what one could call suprised. In a situation like this, with him gone for a while, he actually didn't expect much else. Sombra knew everything about contacting the right people and Overwatch would be a good counter for Talons foot soldiers - if Hanzo Shimada didn't kill his persuers all by himself anyway. 

"So...", he said and prepared for bad news. "Where did the fuck up happen there, exactly? "

Sombras breath quivered on the other end of the line and she had to clear her throat first. "Akande didn't just sent an retrieval team, as I thought. I was wrong."  
She didn't want to speak it out like that at all, Gabriel could tell. "He send in Keith with an entire army of goons. heavy assault. Collect or annihilate anything that is left of the Shimadas, but give him the choice first."

If Gabriel had blood left in his body that could freeze... 

"No... ", he murmured as horrific scenarios played out in his head. Jack...!  
"He made his choice", said Sombra. "Shimada still got away. But Keith made a prisoner..."

Gabriel took a deep unneeded breath.  
"Who is it."

Sombra on the other end swallowed noticeably. 

"The Cowboy", she said. "Jesse."


End file.
